I certainly don't want to get a job just because I happen to live in the US. I want to get it on my individual merits. If that means I have to compete with people in China and India, so be it.
Being better is practically irrelevant. America is an expensive place to live, still pretty full of people whose wages are not forced down by outsourcing. (How much do you think a plumber, cop, or teacher would make if anybody on earth could apply for their job?) It's just silly to think you can be 5x as productive (or whatever the multiple required for a comparable standard of living here); the Chinese are by no means stupid or lazy. Just go to any US grad school and see.
We seem to have found enough menial service jobs to replace our decimated manufacturing industry. Do you really think that makes it OK?
Microsoft didn't really get much networking until Windows 3.0 and it was a hacked up mess.
I clearly remember that early OEM installations of Windows 95 did NOT come with TCP/IP installed, even though "networking" (IPX) was installed. Microsoft was still hoping the Internet would never take off without its help, because they preferred the model of selling CDROMs for everything.
Along those lines, I would love to find out how much government at all levels has paid for MS Office over the years. Since govt. is Microsoft's largest customer, and since the profit margin on Office is astronomical, I'd be amazed if government hasn't paid Microsoft many times what Office cost to develop. And now what does Government have to show for it? Nothing, no IP righs to the software at all, just the promise of continuing to pay through the nose, forever.
Huh? I'm sure it has built-in memory like any other camera.
The only difference would be now you don't need a standalone cable or card reader to transfer the photos. Seems like a pretty good, obvious idea to me.
I am glad you found a silver lining, because otherwise most of the response to the storm has been very disheartening IMHO. From the weak, slow Federal response, to the national guard which turned tail and ran when a psycho fired couple shots, to some significant fraction of the victims who went all Lord-of-the-Flies within two days.
OK, add me to the list for being judgemental. I mean to offense to the majority of victims who are not to blame. I'm just saying we have to change things and plan better for the next time while we have the political will. In a week or two the next big story will come along and we'll all forget about it. Keep that in mind as the powers that be deflect scrutiny by claiming that "now is not the time for partisan finger-pointing..." and so on.
I know we like technology and blogs and all but I can't help thinking that the effort and diesel could be used for other purposes.
Really? Because I keep hearing officials blaming poor communications for this disastrously slow and uncoordinated response, and victims whose first thoughts are to contact their loved ones.
[Libertarians] don't believe in slavery (they believe it is a violation of one's freedom; remember, libertarianism has the philosophy of freedom and of non-coercion).
WHAT!? Are you denying my freedom to own slaves? What if somebody chooses to sign a contract offering their lifetime services to me, in exchange for food and shelter? Surely you wouldn't deny them the freedom to sign such a contract.
Look, my point is that Libertarianism is in the eye of the beholder. If there were no tension among freedoms, everybody could enjoy every freedom simultaneously and there would be no issue of bickering about laws in the first place, because we wouldn't need any laws. The problem is each freedom almost always makes some imposition, large or small, on other people. That's why we're stuck weighing freedoms against each other and sacrifice some to preserve others.
We wouldn't have needed to actually kill them. Both Neanderthals and humans would have competed for the same food; because of our higher intelligence, we would have gotten it and they wouldn't have as a result.
I think in the end it would inevitably come to a fight. When somebody is hungry, they try to get food, even if somebody else happens to own it. Cf. New Orleans.
Maybe it's just me, but yeah, I'd definitely grab the small expensive things including my laptop first. And the cigarette lighter adapter to power it (actually I keep them both in my backpack anyways).
Everybody is saying Internet is useless because people want telephone, but email is a great alternative to having a long conversation with everybody who might be interested, because you can blast it out to everybody you know at once, and it's asynchronous. And for weather and news, give me Internet before the radio anyday. And WiFi is actually a good technology for this because dozens of peope *can* be connected simultaneously.
Certainly free WiFi won't help everybody and shouldn't be used as an excuse not to provide other services, but I'm betting there will be plenty of takers on this offer.
How is any kind of federal disaster relief NOT communist, or at least socialist? We just don't call it that because those are bad words.
In a pure free market, we wouldn't have FEMA, we'd have entreprenuers demanding families' life savings in exchange for life preservers and clean water.
Fog City Shields, for those who don't know, is just a plastic sticker that stands a bit off the face sheild. The air insulating layer helps prevent fogging, just like a two-layer ski goggle.
There are a few problems with it:
1) Even a brand new Fog City film makes the shield noticeably less clear
2) the dual-layer sheild has bad prismatic effects especially at night.
3) the plastic is extremely soft and easily scratched even by cleaning
4) resistance to fogging seems to decrease over time. (Perhaps they use a coating to augment the insulator effect).
5) the fog sheilds are very expensive for what they are (a plastic sticker for $18 or so).
Have you any evidence to provide that the Baath regime WASN'T behind it?
I'd really like to see that, seriously.
It's impossible, you can't prove a negative. Anyways, in the case of uncertainty, I think the default must be not to attack, but to maintain a defensive posture. (And I don't mean "pre-emptive defense").
No one can provide evidence either way, near as I can see.... except for the cashed checks that Hussein wrote to the families of suicide bombers in Palestine, Syria, and Lebanon.
They paid money to all widows and families of people killed fighting Israel. Here Iraq was working against our interests, insofar as Israel's interests are our interests. But we can't go around sacrificing thousands of American lives and tens of thousands of unwitting Iraqi citizens' lives, plus hundreds of billions of our own dollars, on account of a few $25K checks.
Besides, Saudia Arabia did (does?) the same thing. And of course most of the 911 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia, while none were from Iraq. And yet the only clear winner of the Iraq invasion that I see is oil producers, including Saudi Arabia, who are profiting from all the instability the markets see in the middle east. It's that oil money that fills the "swamps" Bush wants to drain, and the terrorists are laughing all the way to the bank.
We should be engaging the Saudis in serious negotiations for change. We should infiltrating terrorist cells. Turning it into a war, fought with conventional war tactics, is just digging the hole deeper... and killing tens of thousands in the process.
A Gallup/Chosun Ilbo poll conducted this summer found that fully 2/3 of South Koreans of military age would side with the north in the event of a war between the United States and North Korea.
Regardless of the history of the issue, I find that hard to believe. The North is starving, and the South seems to be doing well. I'm curious about what, exactly, 2/3 of S. Koreans were answering "yes" to. Do you have a link?
I like flash because my kids like to play flash games on sites like miniclip.com. There has to be some alternative to client-side applications other than blindly installing.exe's. I wish Java had won out, but I guess it was too big and heavy, and took too long to implement little web apps.
I don't know about you, but I'm *glad*.pdf came along and countered the then-growing trend of posting links to.doc documents. I'm glad flash came along and nipped that atrocity ActiveX in the bud. I'm glad when I find websites using Real rather than Windows Media, because Real files play on my linux desktop and most Windows Media links don't work at all.
Pay the man for NOT using his brain for the rest of his life.
Oh, I think they have another choice: let him starve.
For that matter, how much leverge will employees really have in salary negotiations when the employer can say, "take it or leave it... but if you leave, we'll follow you around threatening to sue anybody who hires you."
Well, gee, since it's so "nonlethal," why not just strike everybody down and figure it out later?
People advertise nonlethal weapons as safer, compared to lethal weapons. I'll believe that argument when patrol cops give up their guns in favor of nonlethal alternatives. In practice, what happens is people get gassed or shocked in circumstances that previously would have called for deployment of a megaphone or fire hose.
So let me get this straight... you move away from your family and friends. You pull your children out of their school, away from their family and away from their friends. You go through the trouble of selling your house and moving to a new place and buying a new house on your reduced salary. You lose the conveniences and diversity of a big city.
Well that's funny, those of us who aren't from big cities, and who don't want to be, have been facing this exact proposition for years, but forced to move to the city rather than from it.
My dream job is to consult, living in a beautiful natural setting, and spending about 10% of my time on travel, onsite. (I know of a childhood friend who is doing exactly that). To me large cities are fun to visit but I get my fill.
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We seem to have found enough menial service jobs to replace our decimated manufacturing industry. Do you really think that makes it OK?
Along those lines, I would love to find out how much government at all levels has paid for MS Office over the years. Since govt. is Microsoft's largest customer, and since the profit margin on Office is astronomical, I'd be amazed if government hasn't paid Microsoft many times what Office cost to develop. And now what does Government have to show for it? Nothing, no IP righs to the software at all, just the promise of continuing to pay through the nose, forever.
Here he was just a few weeks ago calling down "additional vacancies occur within the Supreme Court," and Shazzam!
The only difference would be now you don't need a standalone cable or card reader to transfer the photos. Seems like a pretty good, obvious idea to me.
OK, add me to the list for being judgemental. I mean to offense to the majority of victims who are not to blame. I'm just saying we have to change things and plan better for the next time while we have the political will. In a week or two the next big story will come along and we'll all forget about it. Keep that in mind as the powers that be deflect scrutiny by claiming that "now is not the time for partisan finger-pointing..." and so on.
The choice going into the future is which OS to run on X86.
Look, my point is that Libertarianism is in the eye of the beholder. If there were no tension among freedoms, everybody could enjoy every freedom simultaneously and there would be no issue of bickering about laws in the first place, because we wouldn't need any laws. The problem is each freedom almost always makes some imposition, large or small, on other people. That's why we're stuck weighing freedoms against each other and sacrifice some to preserve others.
Everybody is saying Internet is useless because people want telephone, but email is a great alternative to having a long conversation with everybody who might be interested, because you can blast it out to everybody you know at once, and it's asynchronous. And for weather and news, give me Internet before the radio anyday. And WiFi is actually a good technology for this because dozens of peope *can* be connected simultaneously.
Certainly free WiFi won't help everybody and shouldn't be used as an excuse not to provide other services, but I'm betting there will be plenty of takers on this offer.
In a pure free market, we wouldn't have FEMA, we'd have entreprenuers demanding families' life savings in exchange for life preservers and clean water.
There are a few problems with it:
1) Even a brand new Fog City film makes the shield noticeably less clear
2) the dual-layer sheild has bad prismatic effects especially at night.
3) the plastic is extremely soft and easily scratched even by cleaning
4) resistance to fogging seems to decrease over time. (Perhaps they use a coating to augment the insulator effect).
5) the fog sheilds are very expensive for what they are (a plastic sticker for $18 or so).
(OK, that was really aimed at Florida more than Louisiana).
Besides, Saudia Arabia did (does?) the same thing. And of course most of the 911 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia, while none were from Iraq. And yet the only clear winner of the Iraq invasion that I see is oil producers, including Saudi Arabia, who are profiting from all the instability the markets see in the middle east. It's that oil money that fills the "swamps" Bush wants to drain, and the terrorists are laughing all the way to the bank.
We should be engaging the Saudis in serious negotiations for change. We should infiltrating terrorist cells. Turning it into a war, fought with conventional war tactics, is just digging the hole deeper... and killing tens of thousands in the process.
It's like advertising the Hummer as having great fuel efficiency... compared to a Mack truck.
All that would make a lot of sense if Iraq had attacked the US. Before we invaded, I mean.
I like flash because my kids like to play flash games on sites like miniclip.com. There has to be some alternative to client-side applications other than blindly installing .exe's. I wish Java had won out, but I guess it was too big and heavy, and took too long to implement little web apps.
I guess you don't see any links there, but I do.
For that matter, how much leverge will employees really have in salary negotiations when the employer can say, "take it or leave it... but if you leave, we'll follow you around threatening to sue anybody who hires you."
People advertise nonlethal weapons as safer, compared to lethal weapons. I'll believe that argument when patrol cops give up their guns in favor of nonlethal alternatives. In practice, what happens is people get gassed or shocked in circumstances that previously would have called for deployment of a megaphone or fire hose.
My dream job is to consult, living in a beautiful natural setting, and spending about 10% of my time on travel, onsite. (I know of a childhood friend who is doing exactly that). To me large cities are fun to visit but I get my fill.